looked at her, and Brodie could see the wheels turning in his head.
He replied, “I am assigned to all the shitholes in the world.” He added, “Not because I have screwed up, but because I am very good at what I do.”
“And what do you do?” Taylor asked.
“I clean up the shit.”
“I’m surprised you’ve never been to Afghanistan.”
He looked at her again. “I have been there.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t mention it to us.”
“I don’t like to brag.”
“Neither do I. But it’s nice to meet a fellow veteran who’s seen the same shit you have. I spent two years over there with the Ninety-Sixth Civil Affairs Battalion.”
Brodie, who did like to brag, added, “She earned a Silver Star and a Purple Heart.” Colonel Worley needed to know he wasn’t dealing with a couple of lightweights. But probably he already knew that.
Worley looked at Taylor. “Thank you for your service.”
“When were you there?”
“About the same time that Kyle Mercer was there.” He added, “I remember when we all heard about his desertion.”
Well, thought Brodie, Worley couldn’t lie about something that could be checked, so now that his original lie of omission had been outed, he had to be truthful. Brodie asked, “Were you there when Robert Crenshaw was murdered in Peshawar?”
Worley looked at him. “No. I was here by that time.”
Worley’s next question should have been: “Why do you ask?” But he didn’t ask, so Brodie said, “Did it ever occur to you that Kyle Mercer may have killed Crenshaw?”
“Why would Kyle Mercer want to kill a State Department analyst?”
“We’ve been briefed about Mr. Crenshaw,” said Brodie. “So let’s cut the shit.”
Worley stared at Brodie for a moment, no doubt wondering who’d briefed these CID agents about an undercover CIA officer in Pakistan, and why. Eventually he said, “Yes, it did occur to me that Mercer may have killed him.”
“And when did that occur to you?”
“When I was fully briefed about Mercer’s escape from the Taliban camp, which apparently was near Peshawar.”
Brodie asked, “Did you ever work with Robert Crenshaw?”
Worley stared out at the water.
By now, Brodie thought, Colonel Worley had realized that the conversation was a CID interrogation.
Worley finally replied, “That is privileged information.”
“Can I take that as a yes?” asked Brodie.
Worley did not answer the question, but said to Brodie and Taylor, “Your orders are to find and apprehend Captain Mercer, which you may do tonight. You should stick to your orders.”
Brodie replied, “I’m a big fan of mission creep.”
“You’re a cop. Not an Intel officer. That’s my world, Mr. Brodie, not yours.” He dropped his aviators back over his eyes, sat back, and watched two señoritas coming out of the water.
Brodie knew that Intel guys like Worley got high off their own mystique—which was to say, their own bullshit—and they always needed to feel like they were playing four-dimensional chess, even when they were just day drinking on the beach.
“In matters of criminal investigation, my authority knows no bounds.” Brodie informed him, “I have arrested Intel officers, but to the best of my knowledge no Intel officer has ever arrested a CID investigator.”
Worley kept staring at the girls. He took a long drink and said, “I think we’re done here.”
Brodie remained seated. He said, “Here are the questions that are running through my military mind and my criminal investigator mind: Why did a decorated war hero desert his unit? And did he kill Robert Crenshaw? And why? And why did he come to Venezuela?”
“Ask him if you actually sit next to him at the whorehouse bar. He’d be happy to answer your questions before he kills you.”
“Let’s be optimistic. Let’s say I do get to ask him those questions, and I live to tell about it. Do you think his answers will reveal something more than Captain Mercer making some bad career choices?”
Worley replied, “Obviously there is more to this than meets the eye. Any idiot—even a cop—can figure that out. What you also have to figure out, Mr. Brodie—and Ms. Taylor—is if you really want to know more than you’re supposed to know.”
More secret agent posturing and bullshit, thought Brodie. But Worley had a point. Also, maybe Brodie shouldn’t be sharing his thoughts and concerns with Brendan Worley, but sometimes you have to shake the tree to see what falls out. In any case, Colonel Worley didn’t believe that his two CID guests would have Kyle Mercer in custody tonight, or any night. So this was just Worley doing what these people did best—warning mere mortals not to